Armenia

I arrived at the airport at Armenia’s capital city, Yerevan. I was super surprised by Yerevan! In the main part of town and the place where the tourists go, the buildings were shiny and new and everything felt very modern. There were lots of people milling around and I felt totally safe roaming even though it was getting dark.

Armenian food

My first stop was food and I went to a place the hotel person recommended. I got the lovash, which is basically a thin flat bread with very minced meat and cheese. I paired that with eggplant slices and a refreshing berry lemonade. It was all so good! I would totally eat more of that if they opened up a place in Idaho.

Lovash…my new favorite food.

Cascade, viewpoint, and full moon

The downtown area is has a really cool feature called the cascade. It is a giant stone staircase that has several levels that have an artistic feature of some sort (fountain, sculpture, etc.). I climbed all the way to the top and saw there was another stairwell that led to a viewpoint of the city. So I climbed all that too, I think there were almost 600 stairs when it was said and done. The very top had big monument dedicated to the Armenian genocide. There is also a genocide museum in Yerevan, but I didn’t have time to visit.

Yes, I hiked to the top pointy thing. The quads were a-burning.

From the viewpoint, much of the city stretches before you. I was lucky because I caught a hint of pink from the lingering sunset as well as a full moon rising up over the city.

That mountain with snow is in Turkey and the Armenians weren’t super pumped when the border was decided.

Monasteries, monasteries, and more monasteries

I didn’t put a lot of thought into what I wanted to see in Armenia, other than churches. Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity back in 301, so there are lots of churches. I ended up booking a tour each day I was there to different parts of northern Armenia. In retrospect, this was one tour too many. However, I did get to see some really beautiful landscape and I visited lots of mountain monasteries. They all kind of jumbled together, but here are some interesting things the guides told me about them.

Green mountain side with stone monastery. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

Most of the ones I visited were built in the 10th century. Or at least were rebuilt upon older ones and the 10th century ones are the ones that are still standing.
There are several different chapels in different buildings in these monasteries. I guess they would just keep adding to them?
St. Gregory the Illuminator is credited for doing the heavy lifting for bringing Christianity to the forefront. However, he also destroyed a lot of the existing things and replaced them with Christianity. So not much remains from the times before he came around, much to historians’ chagrin.
You don’t often see Jesus on a cross in Armenia. They like to remember Christ as divine so don’t show him as a human on a cross.

The carvings on the doors and stone were really ornate and pretty.

People don’t need priests to confess their sins. There were little rooms where they could confess to God, sans the priest.
There are lots of graves on the floors of the monasteries. In some, this is the whole floor, wall to wall graves.
There are lots of different orthodox Christianity churches (Greek, Armenian, Russian, etc.). Most of these get their own patriarch, which is the leader of their church.
The paintings and frescoes of religious people look Armenian. So Mary and Jesus have olive skin and dark brown hair.

The insides of the monasteries were very colorful.

When the soviets took over, they bleached a lot of the frescoes with lime because they were trying to get rid of religion. Several have been redone now.
There weren’t nuns at the monasteries. At one, the Queen had the monastery built, but then had to build an additional chapel where she could go worship since she was a woman.

The guide said standing in the sun circle will grant you a blessing. I tried it out. We’ll see what happens.

Interesting tidbits

Here are some fun facts I learned about Armenia on the tours.

In the 5th century they had to invent their written language
80 percent of the mountains are covered with trees and brown bears roam free. But these are different than the brown bears in Alaska. Not as scary.
Armenia’s most famous lake, Lake Sevan, was used so much for hydro electricity that the water level dropped several meters. This caused the island where the monastery was built to become a peninsula. Lots of people built things in the lowers levels, so when Armenia decided to do something to preserve their water, they opted to keep it at the current level and not restore it to its original place.

Green hill with stone monastery.

The Silk Road passed through Armenia

What’s this? See above. 👆

Exiting Armenia

I used a shuttle van to take me from Armenia to Georgia. This was a five hour drive, right through the same country I saw on my LOOOOONG monastery tours I took the days prior. I got assigned the front middle seat, right next to the driver in our 15 seater van. This meant I had a front row seat to the craziness of the drivers. I was also right in the action as my driver smoked about a pack of cigarettes on the drive. To be fair, the driving was pretty stressful and we had to go through two passport control sections. I believe the woman next to me was flirting with the driver, and at one point, he had her lean out the window and pick some fruit off a tree. I have no idea what it was, but I ate it when they gave it to me. It was pretty tasty!

Pretty poppies along the route.

Armenia review

I was really impressed with Armenia. The food was really good with lots of fresh veggies and fruits. I would have liked to have seen other parts, but the mountains I saw were really green and beautiful and covered with wild flowers. I am sure I only saw the most affluent and touristy parts of the country, but I would definitely go back again.